Words left Agnetha's mouth just under her breath as she stood at the kitchen counter with a small tweezer she held poking at her skin. She used the light above her and whatever was left of daylight to see better for her glasses alone were not enough. She had been trying at this for five minutes now and no achievement of any kind to be made. Her patience was wearing and Björn could notice it just at one glance as he stepped into the room.
"What are you doing?" he wondered, passing through the kitchen after dropping off a small bag of mushrooms they had just picked together. They were on the same long walk together, but Agnetha made it inside much faster than he did, leaving him to be the one held up with the dogs who also shared the walk with them. The woman was displeased that it had started to pour before they got in, she had mud on her boots, the dogs were probably now soaked, and that hadn't been the end of her inconveniences that morning.
"Nothing. I just... I got this little splinter I'm trying to remove." Agnetha's words and tone revealed her deep concentration.
"A splinter?"
"Yes..." Her blonde head raised for a moment and he saw her eyes past the frames of her black glasses. "I was using the rail that I told you was getting so worn down... and you never fixed it." No, he didn't, he remembered, and what an awful way to remember it now. Her fussy and a splinter in her finger. "It got more wiggly and fell off so I moved it myself and now I have... a splinter." She waved a hand and a tweezer. "But I can't see a thing. I'm losing my mind now." Björn dropped the colored bag on the table top and moved around the sink where above them hovered a warm tungsten light.
"Let me see." They moved and sat together instead, knowing with both of their vision, this would take a minute. Her hand was open faced to him and he was beginning to check her pointer finger. He could hardly see anything even through his own glasses.
"Ow!" she voiced softly. "Careful."
"Sorry," he apologized, a smile drawing on him and then he looked at her with care. "Yeah. I see it."
"Do you?" He had quieted for a good two minutes until her mind her renewed her thoughts. "What do you think? Maybe I should make a mushroom soup with these. They'll be so good."
"It was what I was thinking. Perfect for this kind of weather. Wait," he interrupted, tugging her hand closer. "Don't move."
"I'm not moving, you're moving me."
"I-I think I got it, I—" and then he realized that didn't work. He licked his lip and sighed. "Okay I had it."
"I hope you didn't break it into a smaller piece. It was hard to pull out being as big as it was." Indeed that was what happened.
"I'll get it."
"How can you see, Björn? How can you see better than me? Your eyesight is not even better than mine!" He pulled her hand again naturally, and began taking off his glasses to set aside. The irony was he would see much better with them off if her finger was this up close. Each had a laugh that twisted their lips in the silence between.
Björn's phone rang, a loud sound coming from the pocket of his button up. She was quick to lean in and grab it, leaving the effort he made to beat her to be useless. Agnetha's smile was a beam and she answered the phone.
"Hello, you."
"Tell me, are you holding his phone captive again?" joked Benny, greeting her with his natural playful humor.
"No, he's been good about it," she laughed back.
"How are you, Agnetha?" Benny wondered as he looked outside the window of his studio, just to see the rain pour down and through the green trees. There was a gray cast, but somehow he wasn't irritated by the weather. He felt comfortable to stay in and work.
"I'm well, I've been busy around the home. You know..."
"But not only at home, is it?" he smirked. "How's the music? I heard you're recording," he went on, touching on the subject.
"Well," she smiled, "Yes, yeah I'm recording... We recorded, uh, something new. I wasn't quite sure I wanted to, and suddenly I thought, 'I want to do this, and I can do this'. You know how it is, once I know the idea and hear a bit of it, I can't say no." It pleased Björn to hear that it brought him to smile, although he was still struggling to relieve her finger. She was at the point where she had been willing to live with it being stuck until she could come back to it another time, but as she was on the phone, she caught the shadow of her granddaughter passing by the hall, and she hollered to her to help. "Sorry, Benny," she apologized for the way she interrupted his words in reply to her. Agnetha was sure Ester would be able to pull it out in a second. "Björn's been trying to pull a splinter from my finger for 10 minutes. I'm sure it got worse," she teased. The wink she passed to Björn melted him easy. "Although I appreciate his efforts." The man in front of her lovingly rolled his eyes, passing on the tweezers to someone with clearly much better eye sight than them, and he took hold of his phone again to talk.
"Hey, Benny."
Agnetha exchanged small talk with her granddaughter as her finger was examined. It was on her mind to be checking her grandchildren's agenda for today. Perhaps it would help her decide on the mushroom soup, although it was already set in her mind. And while their conversation was happening, she couldn't have helped her ear being to Björn still and she heard his words that troubled her.
Right. She had forgotten all about him telling her how busy his season was just about to become. This year would be his busiest as would be the very next. Her expressions were obvious but not at all to Björn.
"I think it's out," stated Ester.
"What?" the woman snapped out of her thoughts. "Is it?" Agnetha cleared her throat and then she felt her finger. "Thank you, darling. I think it is. I don't feel it."
Out from one situation and into the other with no time to prepare. Two dogs rushed in breaking the conversations that gave life to the gloomy lit kitchen, bringing out shrieks and huffs that were bottled within her, finally flowing out.
"Peppa! Bella!" she warned, noting that the dogs were jumping on their knees and hoping there is food. The paws of her dogs were dirty of mud and rain, the last thing she needed on her and Björn's light colored clothes. The man's face revealed as much distress with one ear still to Benny over the phone.
"What the—"
"Oh. Björn, please, you're cleaning them."
"What? You are the one with free hands."
"Free hands but not a free brain. There's a ton of things I should be doing."
"Let me finish the call, and I will." The blonde was up and walking around the kitchen, pulling the pans hanging down to begin her work.
"Sure... when they've dried their paws on the couches is perfectly fine then too." The old man hesitated as he had noted the very quick change of tone and personality with him. What had happened?
"I'll just do it," grumbled their granddaughter, having taken the snack she needed and made it out to chase the dogs. They eyed each other disappointed of the result.
"Thank you, Ester," both said in unison and in sync by habit. Only glances left to be shared between the two elders as they had picked up where they left off on what occupied them. Agnetha sighed frustratedly to herself. It wasn't the point to have anyone else but her to do it. Something pressed on her heart from what Björn shared in his conversation and that happened to be her silly response.
Seated on the living room couches later that evening, they hadn't noticed how quiet the house had truly become. Those who were home had been anywhere else but around Agnetha and Björn for a while and time wasn't felt as they talked together. They were caught up on most things like the friendly gossips they encountered recently among their friends, the work they each had to face that week, and the news that had their minds, because in one way or another, what is happening in the world to everyone else was also happening to them as well.
He listened to her speak for a while, but Björn hadn't quite figured out what the matter was with her that morning. And he wasn't thinking to ask, seeing that her mood was already changed for the lighter. It was as if it had been thrown over her shoulder and buried into something that passed and hadn't longer mattered. He knew her so well that it was either something very small or something she would come back to mention all on her own. Björn decided he would wait.
The woman was sitting with legs tucked beneath her in her beige pajamas, listening to all he shared with her beginning from one project, ending with another. His agenda was never ending to her, and though it interested her and pleased her to know he was doing everything he wants to do, it would mean time away from her again. This work promised being in other cities and that meant time and distance from her. He is planned to be everywhere else but where she wants him most. And now she had remembered the words he shared to Benny that irritated her enough to get sensitive with him over the dogs.
She didn't want it. She wasn't prepared for it to happen again. He didn't realize she stopped saying anything, leaving only the strokes of her thumb on his hand until he met her eyes. Then he began to see the look she carried.
"Oh, Anna don't give me that look. You're doing it again. Like this morning." She fixed her stare on him, and looked down to their hands. The lips he loved were bit on in between the thoughts and words as she looked away.
"Better than giving you my words that might not even come out the way I want them to, isn't it?"
"What are you thinking about?"
"I don't know. Sometimes I just wonder when you will stop leaving everywhere all the time," she expressed gently, a voice small and warm. It wasn't her complaining or arguing, fighting for him to stop what he's doing. It was a statement that he knew was made to let him know she wished he would stay beside her.
"It isn't for a long time, Agnetha," he comforted. "I always come back after— just a couple days and I'm here again like I hadn't left."
"Until you leave again," she whispered. "So simple for you to say... You are busy seeing the world. I am just... here. I am just here and time slips by. I do nothing and I'm only waiting for you to come back."
"But if I really had the choice, I wouldn't leave." She looked away, hoping he'd miss her teary blue eyes. He always saw it and she could never avoid it. "Baby, come with me," he whispered. "You won't feel it."
"No, of course not." Her shrug made it sound so obvious there wasn't a way she'd just do that. "But it makes me so uneasy, Björn."
"What does?"
"How much you travel. You are always traveling distances and it makes me fear something happening one day."
"I've taken so many flights Agnetha, it's never any different. And I'm always back here where you know I'll return." He felt her lean to him as soon as his hand stroked her cheek.
"London and Singapore?" she questioned, leaving him to understand that's what had her upset in the morning and it's what triggered her emotions again now. "What after... Japan? Australia?" He tilted his head, struck with her words. He was flustered knowing his agenda for later in the year had some of that in the talks.
"Well—"
"Björn."
"I have to, Agnetha. We have to. We are meeting people, different investors so it's all important." She inhaled a deep breath, aware the argument would be useless.
"It just scares me," she told him again.
"It shouldn't—"
"You know what I think sometimes? When you're gone and I'm here?" Björn gently shook his head.
"What?"
"That something would happen to you, and you're so far from me, and I feel helpless. Especially when I don't hear from you. And above it, our age is enough to have me anxious. We are doing too much at this age."
"Voyage needs us now so that we don't even have to think of it later, Agnetha. While we are still here. And at the same time I am doing all this... you're quite busy yourself with recording. Before you know it both of us will have completed what we need to."
"We could be spending more time together if you weren't away all the time, and that's what I am saying." She lifted her eyes to him so that his locked on hers. "Unless you don't even miss me when you're away," she purred and awaited a response she knew was going to come.
"Me?" Björn asked, a shock expression taking over his face, following after her tease. A hand of his pulled her closer. "Every single minute, Agnetha." Björn kissed her, a tender and warm kiss. "And you cross my mind only every thirty seconds." She was weakened with the touch of his mouth to hers and his fingers moving her hair to the side. She wouldn't have expected any less of his words.
"Yeah?"
"Oh yeah."
"How would I know that?" He pulled back to see her flushed face, cheeks rosy and her eyes bluer and deeper. Björn was calm as he felt her small hand over his chest, placed over his heart that always beat tirelessly for her. He was hesitant. How could he explain it to her?
"I'm blessed that you are in every inch of my work. I was never able to escape you, Agnetha." His confession caused her heart to flutter. "Never then, never now... Everything I worked on, you're always a part of it somehow. And maybe that's what helps me cope with your distance. It's not the same, but I think of you just about every thirty seconds." Agnetha had no words to give him. Nothing else verbal that could express her love. She raised her hand to his cheek and kissed him again, a kiss to which he made only a little more intense.
It stayed this way, with little words and sentences passed back to one another between their breaths. At least just until rumbles were heard down the stairs that had taken their attention. Each of their ears were pulled to the sound to take note that the teenagers had plans. It was late in the evening and though the grandparents wondered what the plans were, they did not have the chance to ask. The girls who were opening the door to leave the home had to face the questions from the parents who were entering through the same door, finding the surprise that their daughters were dressed and ready to go. Jackets on, make up set, bags in hand. The frustration of the girls to a sudden curious interrogation from their parents had Agnetha and Björn laugh and part from each other in the next room. They overheard everything for the next five minutes.
"Björn," Agnetha took his attention again.
"Hm."
"You know, I talked with Linda today... About the thought and possibility of us moving into the other house here. And giving them the freedom of this one." His eyes narrowed as he remembered they had this conversation a couple times and they never found the chance to act on it. "I think now is the right time to do it," she chuckled.
"Honestly?" Her response was a nod at first.
"They're a family and they need this one more than me, and now that it's us. We need something smaller. You, me, the dogs. And we are not even going far, which is what I care about, really. What do you think?"
"You know what I think. We should give them the space and comfort by now. And the other house is a perfect size for the two of us. And the dogs." He glanced at the three who rested on the other couches around them.
"Yes." Björn cleared his throat and he smirked.
"And... it is also a lot more private." Her eyes locked with him and then she rolled them kindly. "I'm just saying what you're thinking." Björn's glittering eyes spoke more than his words to her that it had her bring her head back to laugh in her small thoughts. Agnetha nodded and she bit her lip. She knew all she needed to know by the look of him, and all that was between them. Now it had given her something to look forward to.